FSU football: Will Noles be more disciplined under Mike Norvell?

FSU football has been one of the most penalized teams in all of college football in the past few years. Can Mike Norvell help clean that up?

FSU football has historically been one of the most penalized teams in college football over the past 30 years.

Penalties are going to be higher when playing aggressively, and penalties usually don’t have a direct correlation between wins and losses. I should note ACC referees are notorious for blowing their whistle more than other conferences it seems.

However, dumb penalties put a team in tough spots if they are made consistently enough.

That’s what seemed to happen over the past 2-3 years. An excessive amount of personal fouls, pass interference calls due to poor technique, false starts, and offsides penalties were the norm.

Here’s the number of penalties FSU has had over the past four seasons:

• 2016-100 (13 games)
• 2017-78 (13 games)
• 2018-110 (12 games)
• 2019-119 (13 games)

That’s 407 penalties over 51 games for an average of eight penalties per game. However, when we look at the last two years of the Willie Taggart era, we saw an average increase to 9.16 per game.

Here’s the number of penalties Memphis has had over the past four seasons under Mike Norvell:

• 2016-82 (13 games)
• 2017-111 (13 games)
• 2018-101 (14 games)
• 2019-103 (14 games)

That’s 397 penalties over 54 games for an average of 7.35 per game. That’s almost a two penalty decrease on average when compared to the last two years of the Willie Taggart era.

As I said, a higher number of penalties doesn’t necessarily translate into more wins. Mike Norvell won the most games ever in a season at Memphis while accruing the most penalties in his four-year tenure.

It’s not necessarily how many penalties, it’s when, and what type of penalty is being committed consistently? Penalties on third down that result in an automatic first down have to be eliminated.

Penalties like false starts and holding have to be kept to a minimum to avoid shooting themselves in the foot like the past couple of seasons. It looks as though Mike Norvell teams will be penalized often, but not so much that it’s detrimental to the team.

Stats via cfbstats.com